Oklahoma

Oklahoma
is a South Central state of the United
States (with strong Southern, Western, and Midwestern influences)
and its U.S. postal abbreviation is OK; others abbreviate the state's
name Okla. As of 2000, the population is 3,450,654.

Geography

Oklahoma
is bounded on the east by Arkansas
and Missouri, on the north
by Kansas and northwest
by Colorado (both at 37°N),
on the far west by New Mexico
(at 103°W), and on the south and near-west by Texas.
The panhandle's southern boundary is at 36.5°N, then turning due
south along 100°W to the southern fork of the Red River), completing
the round trip back to Arkansas.

Oklahoma's
natural terrain is very diverse, ranging from oak and hickory mixed
forest in the wetter eastern part of the state, to the post oak and
blackjack oak savannah territory of the Cross Timbers, to the plains
and semi-arid regions of western Oklahoma
and the panhandle.

The state is one
of the six states on the Frontier Strip.

Oklahoma regions

There have been
several schemes used to breakdown Oklahoma
into regions.

The Oklahoma Tourism
Department divides the state down into six "countries" for
tourism promotion purposes: Red Carpet Country (Northwestern Oklahoma
and The Panhandle), Great Plains Country (Southwestern Oklahoma), Frontier
Country (Central Oklahoma, including the Oklahoma
City Metropolitan area), Green Country (Northeastern Oklahoma, including
the Tulsa Metropolitan area), Kiamichi Country
(Southeastern Oklahoma), and Lake & Trail Country (South Central
Oklahoma).

Popular but "unofficial"
regional designations include Green Country (most often used to refer
to Northeastern Oklahoma but used by some to refer to all of Eastern
Oklahoma), Little Dixie (Southeastern Oklahoma), Western Oklahoma, and
the Oklahoma Panhandle.

From a bioregional
perspective, Oklahoma is
recognized by the EPA as having 11 different ecoregions (one of only
four U.S. states to have more than 10 ecoregions). These ecoregions
are: Western high plains, Southwestern Tablelands, Central Great Plains,
Tall Grass Prairie, Cross Timbers, Caves & Prairie, Ozark Highlands,
Ozark Forest, Hardwood Forest, Ouachita Mountains, and Cypress Swamps
& Forests.

Oklahoma
has the strongest thunderstorms in the entire world, because of the
cold and warm airmasses colliding east of the Rocky Mountains, making
the state the heart of Tornado Alley.

History

Pre-European Indian cultures

Oklahoma
was inhabited by Native American tribes including the Kitikiti'sh (Wichita)
Quapaw, Caddo and Osage. Descendants of these peoples still live in
the state.

In the 16th century
Spanish explorers became the first Europeans to visit the area.

Later on Oklahoma
was part of the vast territorial swapping going on between European
powers France and Spain.

Five Civilized Tribes

In the 1830s Oklahoma,
as the Indian Territory, served as the relocation area for the policy
of Indian Removal started by Andrew Jackson.

The end of the Trail
of Tears (Tsa La Gi) was "Indian Territory". There were already
many tribes living in the territory, whites, and escaped slaves as well.

The "Five Civilized
Tribes" were not the only ones forced to Oklahoma.
Nations such as the Delaware, from the northeast U.S., Kiowa, Comanche,
and others were forced to move to Oklahoma.

The name Oklahoma
comes from the language of the Choctaw people, who came in the 1830s.
Okla roughly means "the people" and homa means "red."
Alternatively, this may be a French name: "Okla" is "ochre"
and "homa" is "homme," as the Indians were known
by Louisiana Cajuns.

The five civilized
tribes set up towns such as Tulsa,
Tahlequah,
and Muskogee,
which became some of the larger towns in the state. They also brought
their African slaves to Oklahoma,
which added to African-American population in the region.

During the American
Civil War many tribes were internally split between Confederates and
Yankees. However, in 1861 the Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws,
Seminoles, Quapaws, Senecas, Caddos, Wichitas, Osage Nation, and Shawnees
signed treaties of alliance with the Confederacy. There were several
battles fought in Oklahoma.

Cowboys and Indians

After the Civil
War, in 1866, the federal government forced the tribes into new treaties.
Most of the land in central and western Indian Territory was ceded to
the government. Some of the land was given to other tribes, but the
central part, the so-called Unassigned Lands, remained with the government.
Another concession allowed railroads to cross Indian lands.

Furthermore the
practice of slavery was outlawed. Some nations were integrated racially
and otherwise with their slaves, but other nations were extremely hostile
to the former slaves and wanted them exiled from their territory.

In the 1870s a movement
began by people wanting to settle the government lands in the Indian
Territory under the Homestead Act of 1862. They referred to the Unassigned
Lands as Oklahoma and to
themselves as Boomers.

In the 1880s, early
settlers of the state's very sparsely populated Panhandle region tried
to form the Cimarron Territory, but lost a lawsuit against the federal
government, prompting a judge in Paris, Texas,
to unintentionally create a moniker for the area. "That is land
that can be owned by no man," the judge said, and after that the
panhandle was referred to as No Man's Land until statehood arrived decades
later.

In 1884, in United
States vs. Payne, the United States District Court in Topeka,
Kansas, ruled that settling on the lands ceded to the government
by the Indians under the 1866 treaties was not a crime. The government
at first resisted but the Congress soon enacted laws authorizing settlement.

Congress passed
the Dawes Act, or General Allotment Act, in 1887 requiring the government
to negotiate agreements with the tribes to divide Indian lands into
individual holdings. Under the allotment system, tribal lands left over
would be surveyed for settlement by non-Indians. Following settlement,
many whites accused Republican officials of giving preferential treatment
to ex-slaves in land disputes. The Dawes Act excluded the Five Civilized
Tribes.

Land runs

On March 23, 1889,
President Benjamin Harrison signed legislation by the U.S. Congress
which would open up the Unassigned Lands (some 2 million acres (8,000
km²), for settlement on April 22nd. It was to be the first of a
number of "Land runs" (due to widespread cheating later land
openings were conducted by means of a lottery). Some of the settlers
were called "Sooners" because they had already staked their
land claims before the land was officially opened for settlement.

The Organic Act
of 1890 created the Oklahoma Territory out of the Unassigned Lands and
No Man's Land.

In 1893 the government
purchased the rights to settle the "Cherokee Outlet," or "Cherokee
Strip," from the Cherokee Nation. The Cherokee Outlet was part
of the lands ceded to the government in the 1866 treaty but with the
Cherokees retaining access. Chicago
meat-packing plants had leased it from the Cherokees for huge cattle
ranches. The Cherokee Strip was opened to settlement by land run in
1894. Also, in 1893, Congress set up the Dawes Commission to negotiate
agreements with each of the Five Civilized Tribes for the allotment
of tribal lands to individual Indians. Finally, the 1898 Curtis Act
abolished tribal jurisdiction over all of Indian Territory.

Statehood

On November 16,
1907, Oklahoma Territory combined with Indian Territory to become the
46th U.S. state.

In the early 1900s
the oil business began to get underway. Huge pools of underground oil
were discovered in places like Glenpool.
Many whites flooded into the state to make money. Many of the "old
money" elite families of Oklahoma
can date their rise to this time. The prosperity of the 1920s can be
seen in the surviving architecture from the period, including one which
was converted into the Philbrook Museum.

For Oklahoma,
the early 1900s were also somewhat turbulent politically. Many different
groups had flooded into the state and were trying to figure out how
to live. There were also "black towns", in which blacks tried
to make a life of their own, separate from whites. The white towns were
also segregated. Northern Tulsa
was known as Black Wall Street because of the vibrant business, cultural,
and religious community that had sprung up there.

The Oklahoma Socialist
Party did achieve a fair degree of success in this era (the party had
its highest per-capita membership in Oklahoma
at this time with 12,000 dues paying members in 1914), including the
publication of dozens of party newspapers and the election of several
hundred local elected officials. Much of their success came from their
willingness to reach out to Black and American Indian voters (they were
the only party to continue to resist Jim Crow laws), and their willingness
to alter traditional Marxist ideology when it made sense to do so (the
biggest changes were the party's support of widespread small-scale land
ownership, and their willingness to use religion positively to preach
the "Socialist gospel"). The state party also delivered Presidential
candidate Eugene Debs some of his highest vote counts in the nation.

The party was later
crushed into virtual non-existence during the "white terror"
that followed the ultra-repressive environment following the Green Corn
Rebellion and the World World I era paranoia against anyone who spoke
against the war or capitalism.

The Industrial Workers
of the World tried to gain headway during this period, but achieved
little success. The Ku Klux Klan was also active, denouncing Blacks,
Catholics, and Jews. There were several race riots, including the Tulsa
Race Riot, one of the worst in American history.

Dust Bowl Era

During the height
of the Great Depression, drought and non-ecologically-friendly agricultural
practices led to the Dust Bowl, when massive dust storms blew away the
soil from large tracts of arable land and deposited it on nearby farms
and ranches, distant states, the Atlantic Ocean, and even occasionally
Great Britain. The resulting crop failures forced many small farmers
to flee the state altogether. Although the most persistent dust storms
primarily affected the Panhandle, much of the state experienced occasional
dusters, intermittent severe drought, and occasional searing heat. Towns
as far-flung as Alva, Altus,
and Poteau each recorded temperatures of 120
°F during the epic summer of 1936.

Advances in agro-mechanical
technology simultaneously enabled less labor-intensive crop production.
Many large landowners and planters had more labor than they needed with
the new technology, and the federal Agricultural Adjustment Act paid
them to reduce production. Plantation owners throughout the American
South and much of eastern and southern Oklahoma released their sharecroppers
of their debts and evicted them. With few or no local opportunities
available for them, many emancipated but destitute blacks and whites
fled to the relative prosperity of California to
work as migrant farm workers and, after the onset of World War II, in
factories.

The Grapes of Wrath
by John Steinbeck, photographs by Dorothea Lange, and songs of Woody
Guthrie tell often-exaggerated tales of woe from the era. The negative
images of the "Okie" as a sort of rootless migrant laborer
living in a near-animal state of scrounging for food greatly offended
many Oklahomans. These works often mix the experiences of former sharecroppers
of the western American South with those of the exodusters fleeing the
fierce dust storms of the High Plains. Although they primarily feature
the extremely destitute, the vast majority of the people, both staying
in and fleeing from Oklahoma,
suffered great poverty in the Depression years. Some Oklahoma politicians
denounced The Grapes of Wrath (often without reading it) as an attempt
to impugn the morals and character of Oklahomans.

The term "Okie"
in recent years has taken on a new meaning in the past few decades,
with many Oklahomans (both former and present) wearing the label as
a badge of honor (as a symbol of the Okie survivor attitude). Others
(mostly alive during the Dust Bowl era) still see the term negatively
because they see the "Okie" migrants as quitters and transplants
to the West Coast.

Urbanization

Major trends in
Oklahoma history after
the Depression era included the rise again of tribal sovereignty (including
the issuance of tribal automobile license plates, and the opening of
tribal smoke shops, casinos, grocery stores, and other commercial enterprises),
the building of Tinker Air Force Base, the rapid growth of suburban
Oklahoma
City and Tulsa,
the drop in population in Western Oklahoma, the oil boom of the 1980s
and the oil bust of the 1990s.

Also in this century
came the gradual elimination of the prohibition of alcoholic beverages,
first through the legalization of beverages containing 3.2% alcohol
or less, then through the legalization of stronger alcoholic beverages
sold only in bottles, and finally in the legalization of "liquor
by the drink" in the 1980s. Currently, Oklahoma's liquor laws are
still fairly unusual in that only 3.2% beer can be sold in grocery/convenience
stores, while higher-alcohol-content beverages must be sold in liquor
stores with limited hours of operations.

In 1995 Oklahoma
became the scene of the Oklahoma City bombing, in which a man named
Timothy McVeigh bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing
168 people.

Oklahoma
City has also been the home of Spiritual Walk for Peace, an ongoing
series of peaceful peace demonstrations in downtown Oklahoma
City conducted by members of the city's religious/peace communities.

Law and Government

State government

The capital of
the state is Oklahoma City and its
governor is Brad Henry (Democrat). Oklahoma's state legislature consists
of a Senate and a House of Representatives. The Senate has 48 members
serving four-year terms, while the House has 101 members with two year
terms. The state has term limits for their legislature that restrict
any one person to a total of twelve years service in both the house
and senate.

In the 2005–2006
state legislature, control is split between the major parties, the Democrats
control the Senate (26 to 22) while the Republicans control the House
(57 to 44). This changes the government's make-up since before the 2004
election the Democrats controlled both chambers since 1921.

The state's judicial
branch consists of the Oklahoma Supreme Court, the Court of Criminal
Appeals, and 77 District Courts which serve one county apiece. Oklahoma
is unique in that it has two courts of last resort, the state Supreme
Court hears civil cases, and the state Court of Criminal Appeals hears
criminal cases. Judges of those two courts, as well as the Court of
Civil Appeals are appointed by the Governor upon the recommendation
of the state Judicial Nominating Commission, and are subject to a non-partisan
retention vote on a six-year rotating schedule.

Due to Oklahoma's
restrictive ballot access laws (deemed by many to be the most restrictive
in the nation), no third parties have access to the primary ballots,
however the state does have the following active third parties: Oklahoma
Libertarian Party, Green Party of Oklahoma, Oklahoma Constitution Party.
There are also organizers from the Communist Party USA working in the
state.

Local governance

The state is divided
into 77 counties which deliver local government. Each is governed by
a three member commission. Other county elected officials are the tax
assessor, clerk, court clerk, treasurer, and sheriff.

Cities and towns
are established under the rights granted in the Oklahoma statutes (in
comparison, Oklahoma gives
municipal governments a great deal of latitude in chartering new governments).
Towns are municipalities of under 1000 residents, while cities have
more than 1000 residents. Major cities are also allowed to form "charter
governments," in which the voters choose the form of government
they want to use in place of the statutory forms.

Other local government
units in Oklahoma include
independent and dependent school districts, Vo-tech center districts,
community college districts, rural fire departments, rural water districts,
and other special use districts.

National politics

After the 2000
census the Oklahoma delegation to the U.S. House was reduced from six
to five representatives. For the 109th Congress (2005–2006) there
are no changes in party strength, and the delegation has four Republicans
and one Democrat. Oklahoma's two U.S. senators are James M. Inhofe (Republican)
and Tom Coburn (Republican). The U.S. Representatives are John Sullivan
(Republican) of District 1, Dan Boren (Democrat) of District 2, Frank
D. Lucas (Republican) of District 3, Tom Cole (Republican) of District
4, and Ernest Istook (Republican) of District 5.

Interestingly, Oklahoma
has been a staunch Republican state in national politics recently, voting
for the Republican in every election since 1964. (although the 1976
Carter-Ford race was close). In 2004, George W. Bush carried every county
in the state. His victory in winning Oklahoma's 7 electoral votes was
by the overwhelming margin of 32 percentage points and 65.6% of the
vote. Yet, despite this, there are still more registered Democrats in
Oklahoma than Republicans.

Economics

Oklahoma
is a major fuel and food-producing state. Thousands of oil and natural
gas wells dot the Oklahoma landscape. Millions of white-faced beef cattle
graze on Oklahoma's flat plain and low hills. Fertile fields produce
vast crops of wheat. Its 1999 total gross state product was $86 billion,
placing it 29th in the nation. Its 2000 per capita personal income was
$23,517, 43rd in the nation. Its agricultural outputs are cattle, wheat,
milk, poultry, and cotton. Its industrial outputs are transportation
equipment, machinery, electric products, rubber and plastic products,
and food processing.

Oklahoma
City is the principal economic engine of the state, centered on
the finance, retail, governance, entertainment, and tourism sectors.
The city has numerous manufacturing and processing plants as well as
a growing biotech center and a large aviation market; its location at
the intersection of I-35, I-40, and I-44 make Oklahoma
City an important distribution and shipping point. Oklahoma
City is home to many corporate and regional headquarters including
Kerr-McGee, Six Flags, Sonic Drive-In, SBC Communications, The Hertz
Corporation, and America Online.

Tulsa
is centered around energy, aerospace and telecommunications. The city
has the nation's most inland waterport. Companies based in Tulsa
include Williams, Oneok, Wiltel, QuikTrip, Mazzio's Corporation, Dollar-Thrifty,
and Vanguard. Other employers include MCI, TV Guide, SBC Communications,
Dish Network, DirecTV, USCellular, Cingular, and Onex. Tulsa
is also home to an American Airlines maintenance center, the largest
airline maintenance base in the world.

Demographics

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, as of 2003,
Oklahoma's population was estimated at 3,511,532 people.

The five largest ancestry groups in Oklahoma
are German (14.5%), American (13.1%), Irish (11.8%), English (9.6%),
Native American (7.9%, with Cherokees as the largest single tribe).

Southeastern
and south-central Oklahoma are inhabited principally by Southerners
of American ancestry. German-Americans are present in the state
as well, especially in the northwestern part of the state. American
Indians predominate in eastern Oklahoma. Oklahomans of British
ancestry dominate Tulsa and some other
areas. Blacks are a plurality in Lawton
and Oklahoma City, while Pittsburg
county has many Irish-Americans. A few western counties have significant
Mexican populations.

6.8% of Oklahoma's
population were reported as under 5, 25.9% under 18, and 13.2%
were 65 or older. Females made up approximately 50.9% of the population.

Descendants
of these people still live in Oklahoma
today. Counties with the names of these tribes also exist. Oklahoma
has the second highest number of Native Americans/Amerindians
in the country estimated at 395,219 as of 2003. Only California
has a higher Amerindian population at 682,720. Oklahoma
also has the second highest concentration of Native Americans/Amerindians
in the nation with 11.4% of the state's population, topped only
by Alaska at 19%
of that state's population.

Rural flight

Oklahoma,
in common with five other Midwestern states (Nebraska,
Kansas, North
Dakota, South Dakota
and Iowa), is feeling
the brunt of falling populations in many communities. 89% of the
total number of cities in those states have fewer than 3000 people;
hundreds have fewer than than 1000. Between 1996 and 2004 almost
half a million people, nearly half with college degrees, left
the six states. "Rural flight" has led to offers of
free land and tax breaks as enticements to newcomers in some of
these states.

The effects
of rural flight in Oklahoma
have mostly been felt in Western Oklahoma (those areas west of
Interstate 35).

Religion

Oklahoma
is an overwhelmingly Protestant Christian state. The religious
affiliations of the people of Oklahoma
are:

Culture

The various government
sponsored arts, community, and tourism programs emphasize Oklahoma's
Native American heritage heavily.

Other ethnic celebrations
include those of Yukon & Prague (celebrating the Czech heritage
of some early immigrants), the Mennonite Relief Sale (in Enid,
OK), traditional Asian, African American, and Hispanic celebrations
in Oklahoma City as well as the Pride
parade and festival in its GLBT district, and the Juneteenth Celebrations
found all across the state.

Transportation

United States
highways
North–south routes
U.S. Highway 59
U.S. Highway 259
U.S. Highway 69
U.S. Highway 169
U.S. Highway 75
U.S. Highway 271
U.S. Highway 77
U.S. Highway 177
U.S. Highway 277
U.S. Highway 377
U.S. Highway 81
U.S. Highway 281
U.S. Highway 83
U.S. Highway 183
U.S. Highway 283
U.S. Highway 287

East–west
routes
U.S. Highway 412
U.S. Highway 54
U.S. Highway 60
U.S. Highway 62
U.S. Highway 64
U.S. Highway 66 (decommissioned)
U.S. Highway 266
U.S. Highway 62
U.S. Highway 70
U.S. Highway 270

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